Bringing Back Life, Bringing Back Courage
by sychang18
Summary: Any THOTD fans would know by now that after Kate Green lost James Taylor, she met up with G and went to take down the undead at "the source." But did anyone ever consider what had happened between those 2 events? Does anybody have an idea what happened after THOTD 4 SP? This fanfic will tell you. This story also features. . . AH! Wait, I'm supposed to keep this a secret. Read on!
1. Prologue

Prologue

All was quiet. All tall, lonely skyscraper stood out against the night sky. The stars glowed dimly, fearing the tall building and shying away from it. Beneath the building was a courtyard. The place laid hushed, surrounded by round glass walls blocking out all of the sounds from the outside. The walls casted long, eerie shadows, which strengthened the dreadful silence.

But the silence did not last long. Small sounds of shuffling could be heard amongst the shadows. Then, a tiny figure stepped out of the darkness. This figure was too small to be a human. No, it's ears were round and large disks, and it had a jagged but puffy tail. It was covered with fur, and the extra skin dangling from its forelegs fluttered behind it like a cape. Electric sparks zapped out of its yellow cheek pouches every now and then.

The creature stepped forward, towards the center of the courtyard cautiously. It stopped right in front of the triangular gaping hole in the middle of the courtyard. It looked down, searching for something. It didn't know what it was supposed to find, yet it knew it had to find it, whatever it was. Instinct had drawn it to the ominous vicinity, despite its will to stay away from the city and live within the bounds of nature.

But despite its efforts to look into the hole deeper, all it saw were flames and snowflakes dancing slowly within the bottomless pit.

_Maybe I should just jump into it,_ the creature thought. However, it quickly brushed aside that idea. It could probably survive falling, since it was a flying squirrel after all, and it could always fly out if things didn't go so well. But it knew the fire within would be too dangerous. Those flames were not electric flames, the only type of flames that it could go through unscathed.

The squirrel decided to try out a different idea. It straightened its ears and slightly bent them towards the hole.

That was when it heard it, what it was searching for all along without knowing. The slow, flowing trickle of blood. The faded, but strong heartbeats of something larger than the squirrel itself. The quiet groans of a soul desperate to break free.

A sign of something alive.

**Yay, so, I finally got the prologue of my first fanfic ever posted. I'm sorry if it sucks so far, but again, this is my first fanfic ever. There will be more chapters coming along soon, I promise. And if I ever have to stop writing this story when I'm close to the end, then I will apologize now ahead of time. Anyways, while you wait for the next chapter, I would appreciate it very much if you review this prologue and try to guess who this creature is.**

**?: You made it pretty obvious.**

**Shut up.**


	2. Chapter 1: Waking Up

**So, I got the first chapter posted. I'm sorry if the following name of the title deserves to go, but named chapters will become necessary in a few bits. Oh, and if you guessed that the mystery creature was Emolga the Pokémon, then congratulations! You guessed right! Sadly, there will be no prizes for such, considering I don't even know who you guys are.**

**:'(**

**Well, the main idea here is that Emolga had discovered whatever-it-is. (Don't try to make me tell you! It'll spoil the whole thing!) And another thing I should tell you guys is that from now on, Emolga will be referred to as "she" instead of "it".**

**Emolga: I just find it very insulting when some human calls me an "it". I'm a "she"! Why can't they just know I'm female?**

**I guess that's just how stupid we are.**

**Emolga: You're actually calling yourself stupid? Did you fail a test recently?**

**groan Why don't you just help yourselves to some apples over there?**

**Emolga: Apples! WHEEE!**

**. . .**

**Well, now that I've said what I should, I might as well just stop talking and show you the story. So without further ado, here is the first chapter of Bringing Back Life, Bringing Back Courage.**

**P.S. The Emolga of this story has nothing to do with Iris's Emolga.**

Chapter 1: Waking Up

"Emolga? Emolga! EMOLLLGAAA!"

"Hey, gal pal, you in there?"

"Rise and shine, Emolga!"

Emolga moaned and covered her ears with her leaf pillow. "Stop that, you guys."

"EMOLGA!"

"Just five more minutes!"

"C'mon, get up!"

"I am not. I'm gonna sleep longer."

"No, ma'am, you are not!"

"OK, OK!" Emolga cried with frustration. Couldn't anyone give her some peace once in a while?

She turned over to face the three familiar voices. "Why are you guys so intent on waking me up?! It's only daybreak!"

"_Only_ daybreak? That's just it, Emolga! You have a flight meet to attend to by noon! You might make yourself late!" a gray, fluffy chinchilla angrily shrieked.

"Yeah, we're not missing out on a race as big as that!" a yellow, red-cheeked, jagged-tailed mouse squeaked.

"Don't forget to win and make us proud!" a white, blue-striped squirrel chittered.

"Fine, fine, I'm up," Emolga grumbled. She yawned and stretched. "But, seriously, Minccino, don't yell so loudly next time. You _know_ my ears are sensitive."

"Yeah, sure," Minccino replied, brushing the matter aside.

Emolga rolled her eyes. "Well, are you three _actually _gonna follow me all the way to the flight meet in Mount Airborne?" she asked, turning to her two other friends.

"We sure are! We are _not_ missing out on something as cool as a race that our fastest friend ever is competing in! Right, Pikachu?" Minccino asked the yellow mouse next to her.

"Mm-hmm," Pikachu said nodding.

"Omigoshomigoshomigosh! This is _sooooo_ exciting!" the white squirrel chattered, jumping up and down on the branch she was sitting on, causing Emolga's tree house to rock.

"Whoa, whoa, stop it, Pachirisu! You're gonna make my house fall to the ground!"

"Whoops! Sorry," Pachirisu said, and stopped bouncing at once. "But you have to win. You gotta win! Got it?"

"OK, OK, I will!" Emolga said, rolling her eyes again. But she couldn't help smiling. Today was her final race to compete in in order to become one of the Lightning Wings, the greatest aerial race team of all wild flying Pokémon! If she could win this one, this last one, she would become one of them! She would become one of the fastest wild Pokémon in the world!

She stuck her head outside the tree, and climbed onto the branch where all of her friends were waiting. And she looked outside, expecting to take in the beautiful greenery and bustling activity of every morning in Fragrance Forest.

But what she saw made her blood run cold. For what she saw was a city, a wrecked city, with boulders and bricks flying everywhere. She saw humans, screaming, blood was being spilled. . . and in the far distance, a glass skyscraper. . .

Emolga stiffened. _That has to be the place!_ she thought frantically. _That has to be the building in my nightmares-but why-what does this have to do with-_

Unwary of her own self swaying on the branch she was perched on, she lost her footing.

"AAAAAAAHHH!" Emolga screamed as she fell over from the branch, and fell over, bumping from limb to limb. She fell face flat on the ground. "Oof!"

Her friends carefully climbed down the tree and tried to assist her.

"Um, Emolga? Are you OK?" Minccino asked as she cupped her tail below her friend's waist. "You seemed. . . I dunno. . . scared."

"Huh? Oh, um. . . I. . . I was just nervous about the race, that's all," Emolga stuttered. "Yeah, just nervous."

Minccino eyed her suspiciously, but kept quiet. Pikachu and Pachirisu, however, took no notice of her stammering. "Aw, look at her!" Pachirisu cried, "she's so scared about racing she fell off her own branch!"

"What? No! No, I am not scared! I'm just, um, apprehensive!"

"Ooh, but you sound _so_ scared. _Sooooooo_ scared!"

"Stop teasing me!"

"What's the matter? _Afraid_ you'll be too slow?"

"Oh, I'll show you who's slow, and it won't be me!" Emolga cried, whilst crouching down in a racer's position. "Race you all to Mount Airborne!" she yelled, and set off on all fours.

"No fair! You got a head start!" Pikachu yelled, running after her.

The four friends, laughing, raced each other to Emolga's final flight test.

"Welcome, every-mon, to the 25th and last Juvenile Flight Race of the year!" the Loudred referee's voice boomed. The large crowd of wild Pokémon cheered.

"Today is the day, everyone," the referee continued. "Today is the day when the newest member to join the Lightning Wings shall be chosen! Here we have only 2 racers left from all the previous meets: Gligar and Emolga!"

Minccino, Pikachu, and Pachirisu went wild as their friend's name was called. They jumped up and down on the boulder they were sitting on. Pachirisu was shaking her moss pompoms in a bizarre manner.

Gligar and Emolga stepped onto the starting line. _This is it,_ Emolga told herself. _It's either fly or fail!_

"All contestants ready. . ."

Emolga bit her lip and clawed at ground with her hind legs. Gligar, right next to her, sharpened his claws.

"Get set. . ."

_Oh, dear,_ Emolga thought. Her mind was swimming. _Here goes nothing. . ._

"GO!"

The two flyers sped out faster than anyone could say "thunderation". The crowd went wild, even though they could only see the racers for a split second before they disappeared from view. They had set off so fast that most of the audience's pelt were ruffled. The hairs and scales of their pelts were standing on end.

But Emolga was enjoying the race much more than the crowd that was now more than a kilometer behind her. The wind in her ears, the tense excitement keeping her flight suit sturdy. . . _she loved it!_

Then at the corner of her eye, she saw something that made her jump. Gligar was moving closer to her to with a gleaming claw.

_Guillotine!_ She knew what that move was, she had seen him ruin the dreams of many racers this way! In a flash, Emolga spun sideways and narrowly avoided his claw. On impulse, she used Air Slash on Gligar, which was enough to disorient him with a barrage of windy rapier slashes.

_Serves him right,_ Emolga thought, smirking. But she could not allow herself to slow down; Gligar had just barely managed to recover, and he was gaining on her. She had to do something.

With a bit of hesitation, Emolga kicked in Tailwind. She sped forward, at an unbelievable speed of 15 km/s. It was so fast, so fast that not even Gligar could catch up. Emolga narrowed her eyes and clenched her teeth, bunching up her muscles a bit so that her ears wouldn't be shredded by the pure force of the wind against her.

_Soon,_ Emolga thought to herself, _very soon, it'll be over. I'll win this in no time at all, nothing will go wrong. Easy-peasy._

Nothing could be farther from the truth, for right then a barren stretch of ice at the peak of the mountain course reflected sunlight straight into her eyes. The light was so bright that Emolga nearly stopped in her tracks. But she shook her head, got a hold of herself, and kept speeding forward with Tailwind. Now, she could only hope that she was staying on course of the race, without flying off to elsewhere.

She kept flying above the shimmering mountaintop glaciers, hoping that vegetation would show up soon and put an end to the ordeal the sun was putting her through. But the light only grew brighter. Eventually it grew so bright that Emolga finally had to squeeze her eyes shut. Following her instinct to fly straight, she prayed that the stretch of ice would come to a stop.

Onward she went through the bright light. Emolga just flew blindly; had she not been disturbed by the light, she would have seen what was coming in front of her. But with her eyes closed, she could not avoid the wall closing in fast on her face.

"Mmph!" she whimpered in pain as her nose made contact with it. It hurt!

As soon as she bumped, she lost hold of the intense concentration of her flight. Her flight suit lost strength and folded up, and her Tailwind stopped working. Emolga squeezed her eyes even tighter as she waited for the pain of a high fall to come. The bump of the ground came up sooner than expected.

But it didn't hurt at all. Emolga had barely descended a meter before hitting the ground.

Emolga was confused. Had she been flying downward all along?

Daring to open her eyes at last, she looked around. What she saw made her mouth gape. Had she the ability to unhinge her jaw, it would have reached the floor.

For surrounding her was not the mountainous terrain, but walls. And not just any walls. Walls made of rock-like solids. Walls put together by dull cubes and prisms, rough and smooth. Concrete walls. Brick walls. _City walls._

But these walls did not stand erect. No, these walls were cracked and crumbling, many of them already reduced to smithereens of smithereens.

However, this was not what horrified Emolga the most.

Beyond the ruins of walls were more ruins, but not just of walls. These greater ruins were made up of collapsed buildings and overturned cars. Everywhere around her, the ruins were filled with cracked glass, singed metal, and gigantic boulder-like pieces of what used to be schoolhouses or apartments.

This wasn't what terrified Emolga the most either.

What really got to her was not the ruins, but the large amounts of bright red glistening gunk smeared over the majority of the ruins and the gravel road that she was standing on.

Emolga clenched her forepaws tight. _It's just paint. . . just thick, red paint. . . the road and wall painting business hasn't been finished yet._

But she knew better. She knew the truth. She knew no matter how many times she tried to deny it, the sticky fluids had the unmistakable scent of life, death, pain, and terror all mixed into one.

The scent of _blood._

Emolga could not tell where she was, but it was perfectly clear to her where she wasn't. One thought alone, out of all those confused emotions that had begun to build up in her, stood out.

_This is _definitely _not the race._

**All right. I've finished the first chapter. And all of you readers out there, I know this chapter sucks extremely, but I am not great at introductions at all. I promise that my writing will get better as time passes. I can't really do anything about the undescriptive parts of my writing, so all I can tell you is to expand your imagination instead of just reading this. Anyways, I'm working on the second chapter, so until then, please wait!**

**Emolga: Can I have some more popcorn and apple slices?**

**SHUT UP!**


	3. Chapter 2: Pieces of a Puzzle

**Alright, second chapter of this fanfic. I've been lacking motivation recently, and I was being driven by all sorts of ideas otherwise the storyline. . . but I have to stay on topic. So if this chapter ends up more boring than the previous one, forgive me. I am terribly sorry for that.**

Chapter 2: Pieces of a Puzzle

Emolga was breathing quickly; _very quickly._ Her gasps were growing shallower and shallower. She was so shocked and overwhelmed by the sudden and hostile change of her surroundings.

_Why?_ Emolga wondered. _Why did this happen? Why did this _have _to happen? And how?_

She thought she would black out. So much blood, so much destruction, so much-

_Stop. Right now. Just _stop.

Emolga tried to breathe slower.

_Imagine. Would you show so much fear in front of your friends? Are you going to make them calmer, or are you going to arouse their fears?_

Thinking this helped Emolga relax a bit. Seldom had she shown her fears in front of her friends; she would conquer those phobias as she grew. It was the motivation to protect her friends that had always helped her mature. No, she would not make her friends more fearful by being fearful. She had to be fearless. For their sake.

The shock of the appalling sight finally began to weaken. The mixed emotions inside her ebbed away, and her brain was starting to think again.

She swung her head to her right and left. She saw nothing but the ruins and the blood.

_Maybe I'm standing in the middle of one accident. This might be the only part destroyed; maybe beyond these ruins, things are a bit more orderly, and no one got hurt. I just landed in the off-limits zone._

But just to make sure, she opened up her flight suit and cautiously flew up. There was no telling what could happen to her in a place like this.

She soon learned that she was wrong. Even beyond where she had landed, she saw a huge skylength of buildings, all cracked up and on the verge of collapsing. But at least not all of them were in bits and pieces, although there was still just as much blood smeared on the walls. Emolga felt so relieved, just to see that some buildings were still standing. She had never approved of them, filling up much of the skies' spaces, but the last thing she wanted to see at the moment besides blood was more devastation.

But why was this of her concern? Emolga frowned. She knew she was not where she should be, and yet, she felt. . . she felt like. . . _she felt like she just had to be here._

Emolga cleared the thought. _No. I have to get back to Mount Airborne. If I'm lucky, I can finish earlier than Gligar still, although it won't be record time. Then, I can take care of this._

She spread her flight suit and looked up, preparing to take off whilst searching for the icy peak of the mountain.

But she could not find it. The entire sky was blanketed with red smoke thick enough to blot out half of the sun. Even if she knew the direction, she would not be able to fly as high as she should, judging by how dirty the smoke was.

_Or it could be a trick of the light. It could be normal fog with a reddish hue._

Emolga rose up a bit higher into the sky so that she could almost reach out and touch the layer. She took a small whiff, just to get the scent. She barely managed to keep the vapor itself out of her.

_It doesn't smell like natural fog._

Emolga wasn't sure. Using her sense of smell had never helped her much.

But her sense of hearing always did.

_Would trying to _hear _it work? Well, I should at least give it a try. What could go wrong with that?_

Carefully, she bent her hears forward. In an instant, she heard the familiar hiss of fire, and the shrill grating of burning wreckage. Even though this was the first time that she had tried to hear something like this, she knew from the sounds what the vapor was. Smoke. And if it was smoke, then it would be too dangerous to try and fly through. She would not be able return to the race anytime soon.

She would not be able to go back home any sooner either.

Emolga thought she was going to die of exhaustion. There being no other alternative, she had to walk, and walking for three hours was definitely not an easy job for a squirrel whose hobby was to fly _fast._ She was always running when on the ground and zooming past everything when in the air. But now that she had no sense of direction, she could not fly as fast as she could, let alone run. Emolga was constantly looking up, hoping that some clear sky could emerge so that she could fly back home, regardless of whether she could win the race or not.

But all she could see in the sky was a veil of red smoke.

Emolga decided to catch a break. She would probably pass out if she walked for too long.

She flopped onto a small rock that happened to be nearby. The top was caved in a little bit, like a bowl. In here, Emolga curled up. She was so tired that she didn't even bother to try and go looking for some soft padding. She closed her eyes.

But she could not fall asleep. Her fatigue was interrupted by a loud bloodcurdling screech, causing her to jump up. She froze on the spot, waiting for another shriek. She didn't have to wait for it for a long time; she soon heard a few more screeches. Her ears twitched, and Emolga frowned in confusion. She found those screeches very odd. It sounded like something was dying, yet vibes of life were being emitted off of the sounds. It sounded like something was mourning, and it also sounded like predatory creatures that were eager to finish its hunt.

And it sounded like it was coming from directly above her.

Emolga looked up, already shivering, for fear of what she would encounter. And she saw the most hideous creature that she had ever seen her entire life.

For above her was a humanoid creature with the most grotesque features that she had ever seen. Its eyeballs were bulging, and its skin was ripped off in random places, showing its bare muscles here and there. It had large, tattered bat-like wings. On its fingers were claws made to rip and tear. It was also wearing jeans, for some reason.

_What kind of Pokémon in his or her right mind would wear _human garments? _Unless I'm facing an urban Pokémon who just picked up some scraps for fun._

Emolga didn't know if this new Pokémon that she had just met would be friendly or hostile. Either way, it had to be the most recently discovered, not to mention the most disgusting, species ever.

"H-hello?" she managed to stammer. She smiled up at it.

Then the creature went crazy. It eyes bulged even more, and it screeched at the top of its lungs. Then it dove straight for her.

Emolga could have mistaken it for an embrace from a wounded Pokémon who hadn't had any company for ages. She managed to notice it baring its sharp teeth just in the nick of time.

"Woah!" she cried and dodged to the side, barely avoiding it. Unfortunately for her, the creature managed to stop itself before it bashed its face into the ground, and it whirled, preparing to strike again. Again, Emolga just barely kept herself out of reach. The snap of its teeth closing in on air sounded deafening to her. Then it panted, already exhausted from leaping so fast to get her.

"Serves you right!" Emolga said, smirking in triumph. She could easily finish it off in this state.

Then she heard more screeches in the air. She looked up and found three more of those creatures.

"Ugh, come on!" she cried. The three of them dove at her, a little more slowly than the first, one at a time. One of them tried to butt its head on her, one of them tried to scratch her, and one of them tried to land on her on its feet, all attacks of which Emolga hardly escaped.

Emolga used Thunderbolt, but she could not aim properly. It hit none of the mysterious Pokémon that now surrounded her.

Her mind was swimming, searching for an escape route. But there was only one dangerous option left for her.

"Hey, wanna race? Y'all gonna call for a race?" she hollered. "Let's have a race!"

With that, she flew straight up, then straight forward at full speed, with the creatures close behind her.

Emolga knew she wasn't supposed to do this. Flying was probably a bad idea as of now. But she didn't see how else she could have escaped the situation. Being careful to avoid the smoke and the buildings that still stood, she zigzagged to and fro, hither and thither, with the creatures in hot pursuit of her.

Emolga just kept going like that, looking for somewhere to hide. She just kept zigzagging everywhere, until. . .

Something caught Emolga's eye. She saw a steeple with a huge, round clock dangling from it. Just perfect.

She quickly flew up towards the loose clock. She flew around it, and the winds from the force of her flight caused it to spin around and around. The creatures happened to be right behind her, and they could not get away from the spinning clock in time. It hit each of them in turn until they flew away, dizzy from the clock's sudden attack and confused of where their prey had gone.

The clock gradually halted to a stop. At the back of it, Emolga was hanging for dear life on the gigantic discus. Spinning around something was one thing, and hanging onto something spinning was a totally different matter.

Emolga, catching her breath, decided to hang there and think. It was time she pieced all of the details together. She decided to take some mental notes.

_Was racing but got blinded by light and ended up in a human city._

_City is in a terrible state._

_Lots of smoke in the sky. Too dangerous to fly through; will not be able to go home until it clears up._

_Got attacked by strange, horrible Pokémon._

She kept thinking this over and over. Emolga knew that these events had to be linked together. Somehow. Although she didn't know how she landed in the city during the race, she did know that she arrived when the city had already suffered a lot.

_Time to put the puzzle pieces together._

First, she knew that the human city wasn't being recently built. A genius wasn't necessary to figure out the very clock she was hanging onto was antique and broken. Second, she knew, from the amounts of blood all over the place, that lots had died. Emolga also figured that whatever had caused all this trouble had to be really strong. Beyond comparison. Could it have been those Pokémon? But they seemed too weak to cause so much damage.

Then she remembered how when she thought she was actually fighting only one of those creatures, there were actually a few trying to hunt her down. Which most likely meant that if she saw a few, then there were many around her. It might have actually been possible for these creatures to have created such lethal damage.

But it couldn't have been them. Even if they were responsible for the killing, the wreckage may have had nothing to do with them.

_But if not them, then what?_

She soon got her answer. For at that very movement she heard a grunt, and some loud footsteps. It must have been coming from something large, or it wouldn't have been sending tremors through the city, from the cracked roads to the core of Emolga's clock.

Emolga gritted her teeth and hung on tighter. As the sounds grew louder, her fear and curiosity grew bigger. What she really wanted to do was to just look for a safer hiding place, away from the sounds' source. But her curiosity got the better of her. Cautiously, she peeped out from behind the clock.

She almost threw up. In front of her was a thing that she could not bear to gaze upon for long. It was green, and humongous, not to mention very fat as well. It had tattoos all over its body, and it had two eyes with overgrown eyelids, a wide mouth filled with sharp teeth, and huge feet. Upon it's feet were large sneakers that created cracks in the ground below. This creature was also wearing black tight pants, the reason for it which, of course, Emolga knew not.

Emolga wasn't sure if she had gotten the bare facts straight, but she was sure of the conclusion she drew.

This Pokémon and the other new Pokémon she had seen earlier were responsible for the chaos that had taken place in the city.

**Yes, this did take a lot longer than expected. And I know that near the end, the whole thing started to grow a bit rushed and sloppy, but I don't want to bore you all to death by droning on and on with stuff. I basically skipped forward to the action; I guess you can put it that way. I also think that I might get a lot of complaints for the ending, but again, I'm lacking motivation. Seems like I'm going to have to watch a few episodes of Pokémon and play The House of the Dead 4 with my friends at an arcade to get those story juices back.**

**I just noticed that this chapter was a lot more like a chapter because it was longer. LOL :D**

**Whatever. Anyways, I just want to thank everyone who read this for really telling me about what they think on this fanfic. I hope I can keep up with finishing the next chapter!**


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